Skullgirls Original Soundtrack

Skullgirls is a beautifully animated 2D fighter that was released on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation network in American in early April. The European release was on May 2. If you've only seen screen shots of Skullgirls, it may surprise you to find out what the music for the game actually sounds like. Rather than go with a rock or techno inspired soundtrack that a lot of fighting games opt for these days, Skullgirls music is comprised of mostly jazz and contemporary jazz and it is GLORIOUS! The Skullgirls Original Soundtrack was released on April 21 on iTunes and CD Baby for $9.99. It contains 28 tracks.

As a huge fan of jazz, I was thrilled by this soundtrack. Lots of video game scores are moving towards Hollywood caliber music, which bad, but I wouldn't mind if more games offered music like what's found in Skullgirls. From the get-go I was very impressed with what I heard. Pick of the Litter, the character select theme demanded that I listen to it multiple times to bask in it's audio magnificence. It's amazing people playing this game actually make it past the character select screen. The Lives We Left Behind sounds like it came straight out of a Castlevania game, features a little vocal work and is one of the longer tracks on the album, spanning more than six minutes. Breaking away from the jazz compositions is Dirge of the Divine Trinity, another tune that wouldn't be out of place in the aforementioned Konami series. The twenty eighth track, Hitomi No Kioku, the ending credits them, which loosely translates to In Just a Moment's Time is one of my new favorite vocal tracks in gaming. Sadly, the soundtrack does not contain an English version of it. It would have been nice to have this song in both languages just for completion sake. But in any language, this track is so good you could put this on at a bar or fancy restaurant and very few people would recognize the source of this song. The same can be said for The Seat of Power.

The people that composed the music for Skullgirls are an incredible show of audio force. I know I drew comparisons to Castlevania with some of the tracks. If you do get a 'vania vibe from a few of these tracks, that's because Michiru Yamane, mostly know for her work on Castlevania, composed a good chunk of the music for this soundtrack. Wonderful as her compositions here are, she isn't the only one to thank. Vincent Diamante, Brenton Kossak and Blaine McGurty all helped to make Skullgirls the amazing soundtrack that it is. And let's not forget Kahori Yamane for her awesome work on the vocals and Geila Zilkha for lending her excellent voice to the ending credits theme.

Every single positive word I could use to describe the Skullgirls Original Soundtrack, well, Skullgirls is all of those things. It's a great video game soundtrack. Heck, it's a great soundtrack in general and for $9.99, they just gave the the thing away. As of right now, Skullgirls is in the top running for the best soundtrack of 2012, at least as far as I'm concerned. Get this soundtrack. NOW! WHY ARE YOU STILL READING THIS?!

Skullgirls Original Soudtrack at iTunes

Skullgirls Original Soundtrack at CD Baby